Alpine Group Stocks Up on Hill Experience | Downtown Moves

The Alpine Group, a top K Street firm, is adding two veteran operators with deep congressional staff experience, Lauren Bazel and Sheila Kennett.

Bazel will be working with the firm’s tax, trade and finance practice. She joins the firm as vice president and comes over having served most recently as associate director for government affairs at the Center for American Progress.

Bazel previously worked for Secretary of State John Kerry when the Massachusetts Democrat was in the Senate, as well as Kerry’s appointed successor, former Sen. William “Mo” Cowan, and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. She’s got a long history of working on tax issues, including for Cantwell and as a tax reporter for BNA back in the day. She’s also worked at Ernst & Young.

Kennett, who comes on board as director of operations and client services, has a bipartisan résumé, having worked for Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and ex-Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H. That experience should come in handy at Alpine, whose firm’s employees have contributed to both sides of the aisle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

“Lauren expands our already substantial tax and finance practice and will help provide even more value to our clients with her political and substantive knowledge of tax and trade policy, while Sheila brings a wealth of experience and relationships that will further streamline our operations and relations with our dozens of clients,” Greg Means, principal and CFO of the Alpine Group, said in a statement announcing the hires.

Congrats to Bazel and Kennett. I’ll bet they didn’t know that on their first day, the firm calls in indie rock favorites Alpine to serenade them while they’re picking up their key fobs and health insurance info: